Through our relationship with Darshan Yeshiva, we are supporting the launch of Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary (PRS), what we hope to be the very best in practical, distance learning based rabbinical education.
What do we love about this project? PRS is the only rabbinical school with a focus on helping students launch innovative Jewish projects around the world. It’s both a rabbinical smicha program and a Jewish communal incubator.
PRS has three goals:
- To train and ordain future rabbis for the future of Judaism
- To provide the absolute best distance education rabbinical education possible
- To be a leader in Jewish pluralism
Three reasons you’ll LOVE LOVE LOVE Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary
Multi-Denominational Smicha
Rabbinical education comes from Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and post-denominational rabbis. Smicha, ordination, is through this trans-denominational bet din.
High Learning Standards
This is not quickie smicha. This is not private ordination in the back room of a deli. This is 100% legitimate education from MA and Ph.D. educators. PRS’s rabbinical education program includes two years of studying text, history, language, and practical rabbinics using distance learning tools that create as much interaction between students and educators as possible.
Students also must do elective learning through a system of podcasts and videos, homework and quizzes.
Finally, students also must present at the end of two years a thesis in the form of a program, product or project launch that will make Jewish life better.
PRS goes to great lengths to stress the intensity of the program. The academic calendar provides a one-week break per quarter, which is filled with the independent elective learning.
Seeking Non-Traditional Students
At PunkTorah, we’re proud to be non-traditional (even if by non-traditional we mean being super traditional in a non-traditional way). In supporting PRS by way of Darshan Yeshiva, we’re helping find non-traditional rabbinical students who continue to work full time while studying with Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary.
So what if you want a more traditional career? As PRS puts it…
There are many options for rabbinical education and we would encourage students seeking more traditional careers to attend more traditional rabbinical schools.
https://jewishpluralism.org/about/
What is the relationship between PRS, Darshan Yeshiva and PunkTorah?
PunkTorah Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, which began as this blog. This blog went into archive mode (no longer updated) many years ago.
PunkTorah now runs Darshan Yeshiva, a distance learning-based “yeshiva for beginners” including a popular conversion to Judaism program.
A team from Darshan Yeshiva including technologists, marketing people and educators has put together PRS. PRS is ran separately from PunkTorah and Darshan Yeshiva, though some educators work at both Darshan Yeshiva and Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary.
Learn more about Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary’s online rabbinical smicha program here.